Battles of the month: September

Most of this month’s best battles came out of KOTD’s World Domination 4. We expect it’ll be the same for next month too. Here are our picks for the battles to watch from September. If you’re a KOTD fan, you’ve likely already seen most of them, so share this with a friend who should watch more battles.

DNA VS CHARRON

Charron has two things going for him right now:

1. He just had a(nother) breakout performance that caught the attention of URL fans. We’ve seen dozens of people calling this a contender for battle of the year.

In battle rap, sometimes robberies are better than wins. Just look at Pigsty since Cody or Lex D since Cobalt45. Yes, a cypher appearance would’ve been great exposure for Charron, but all of a sudden he’s got a whole movement behind him screaming for justice and revenge. This story has potential to break nationally and internationally too.

Charron has become the perfect example of the “advantaged underdog” and should roll with it rather than hitting the gym and getting tatted up.

PAT STAY VS ARCANE

What we will say is that this battle was one of the most epic we’ve seen live. The crowd was amped after a weekend of great battles and both MCs delivered. So much was at stake for the league: think of how different the KOTD landscape would be if Arcane was still the champ. We’re now about six weeks into the Pat Stay era and so far it’s been mostly videos of bubble rap and pooping, but that’s still better than five more months of stale BarGate controversy.

Oh, and make sure you catch Arcane’s cornerman mouthing the words around the 11:20 mark.

CADALACK RON VS AB HOGISH

This battle, from Dirtbag Dan’s Battle of the Zae 2 event, is one of the most interesting we’ve seen in a long time. Ron steps his offensiveness up to ridiculous levels, but if you can look past that, he raises some important questions about race angles in battle rap. When does a race angle cross the line?

Watch any A-Class or Tantrum battle and their opponents go on about eating pets, being bad drivers and pretty much every other Asian stereotype. Is what Caddy says to Hogish worse than what Charron/Dizaster/Kid Twist have said to their past opponents? And in those battles, the crowd was dying from laughter.

The battle gets even more interesting when the crowd seems unfazed by Hogish’s homophobic slurs.

We asked Hogish for his reaction to Caddy’s content. He said: “I felt he had a lota heart to say the shit he said nd I respect him for that but I wazt too fond of the references he waz using.”

Caddy stopped short of his third round closer because he could feel “the tension really getting intense” and said there were guys there who were thinking about jumping him.

We asked Caddy for his last four bars. Here they are:

Then y’all act all crazy hit the streets and get stupid violent
I think secretly you want us to beat the charges so you have an excuse to riot
Then the cops beat your ass again just to keep the nuisance quiet
I mean fuck… you guys are practically lynching yourselves might as well grab the noose and tie it.

BONNIE GODIVA VS YOUNG GATTAS

Another bona fide classic from WD4. The footage seems a bit different from how we remember it going down live: Gattas’ presence filled the whole venue, and Bonnie’s haymakers hit harder. Still, pretty much everyone we’ve seen comment on this battle absolutely loved it, whether they were there or not.

Keep an ear out for Deffinition around 19:05, after the noise from the kiss starts to settle.

Here’s our interview with Bonnie after the battle:

And here’s Gattas speaking on the battle, the kiss and her impressions of WD4.

TY LAW VS SNO

Here’s the best battle URL put out in September, between two talented guys who’ve been bouncing around small leagues in the U.S. northeast for a while. Law’s writing is at a level of sophistication usually unseen in URL. We don’t pretend to get all his references, and the majority of the crowd doesn’t either. But he gets a face-melt reaction out of at least one person with almost every punch.

Sno’s intensity is off the charts, especially for such a small venue. We hope to see him clash with Caddy sooner rather than later.

BONUS: A-CLASS VS FLAMEZ

Here’s September’s sleeper classic. Baltimore’s A-Class against Dot Mob’s Flamez on Swave Sevah’s roof in Harlem. They battle over a beat, outside, in front of about 10 people. The audio is dodgy and the editing is choppy on purpose. But somehow, with Flamez’ flow and A-Class’ bars, it all comes together.